Okay, so I didn’t do much painting in Arizona: it was mostly a whirlwind of family activities. I spent much of the time in surburban locales; when I had the opportunity to go out hiking, I was mostly birding and photographing as my secondary activity, not painting, which would have slowed the group down too much.
But! I did a little hotel sketching and have done some painting from photos. I ended up painting less landscape (rocks, etc.) than I expected and a lot more sunsets/sunrises, which are spectacular in Arizona.
Photo to Sketch/Painting
Hazy Mountain
The inspiration is hardly visible in the photo, but the effect I was sketching was the warm, distant blue mountain as the sky turns yellow. I used only two colors: Indanthrone Blue (PB60) and Isoindolinone Yellow Deep (PY110).
Landscape with Saguaro
Multiple references for this sketch!
Colors: Indian Red, Cobalt Blue, Naples Yellow Deep, Indanthrone Blue
Tree & Stone
Diluted Transparent Red Oxide + a bit of Indian Red worked well for the very orange, rusty stone color, though Venetian Red also would have worked. The landscape was full of these very yellow grasses, for which I found Naples Yellow Deep a great color. With TRO, Indanthrone Blue mixed up the grays.
Blue-Yellow Sunset
I mainly did this as a flex to do the notoriously difficult blue-to-yellow gradient.
Blues: Cobalt Blue, lightly dulled with Transparent Pyrrol Orange.
Yellows: Hansa Yellow Medium, Isoindolinone Yellow Deep, Transparent Pyrrol Orange.
Payne’s Gray for silhouette.
Venus, 2 Palms
I took the photo to see how bright Venus was; I wish I’d emphasized it more in the photo instead of adding a hat-on-a-hat hawk.
Colors: Azo Yellow (PY151), Quin Red (PV19), Cobalt Blue. Payne’s Gray silhouettes.
More Reference Photos
Here are some observations I haven’t painted (yet???)
White Tank Mountains, Arizona
More of the yellow grass, plus startlingly green lichen on pink rocks.
The distant vegetation also shows some reasonably vibrant greens. You can also see darker greens dotting the distant mountains.
A closer view of the green mesquite trees.
Yellow grass is very visible in this lighting!
Tan dead cactuses. Why didn’t I photograph a live cactus?? I just find wabisabi interesting, I guess.
Okay, here’s a live saguaro, but the backlighting makes the color odd. Tbh, every saguaro seemed to have such strange lighting that it never seems to show the “right” local color, which is maybe telling! This photo also shows the dirt well.
Parking Lot Sunrises
And sunsets:
Palette
In order to reflect the colors I actually used for paintings, sketches, and nature spots, I’ve made some adjustments to the palette that I took. I’ve mostly just made it more similar to my standard palette!
Top row:
- SH Aureolin Modern aka Azo Yellow (PY151) – I swapped PY97 for my slightly cooler yellow because it makes more pleasing sunset corals with PV19.
- HO Isoindolinone Yellow (PY110) – kept
- DS Transparent Pyrrol Orange (PO71) – swapped PR188 for this. It’s more distinct from coral.
- DV Quin Red (PR209) – kept
- DS Quin Red (PV19) – kept
- HO Phthalo Blue Red Shade – swapped Green Shade for Red Shade as Red Shade is more usable unmixed for desert skies and shadows, cactus greens, etc.
Bottom row:
- WN Naples Yellow Deep (PBr24) – swapped Quin Gold for this as it works better in the sky without mixing greens. It’s also a great color for some yellow grasses I saw.
- DS Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (PBr7) – swapped DV Raw Sienna for this. The two colors use the same pigment and are similar, but MANS is more yellow and granulating. In 2022 when I went to Nevada I specifically felt that RS was better than MANS for the local landscape; I’m not sure if the local color in the Las Vegas area is significantly more orange than that in the Phoenix area, or if my eye/mental mixing map is just different.
- DS Transparent Red Oxide (PR101) – kept
- DV Indian Red (PR101) – kept
- DS Indanthrone Blue (PB60) – swapped back in after attempting to use Ultramarine Blue in its place. Ultramarine is the more traditional choice but I always end up going back to my love, Indanthrone Blue.
- DV Cobalt Blue (PB28) – kept
- SH Cobalt Turquoise (PG50) – swapped back in after attempting to use Cerulean Blue in its place. Cobalt Turquoise makes better sky blues with Cobalt Blue. Also can be used to mix bright green lichens, or mixed with warmer yellows for cactus greens.